I remember the fact that my feet burned, and that my Arab friend laughed with a barking sound, for which I called him "Jackal". He in turn called me "Tezick", meaning female camel. The sand was hot and sank up to my ankles and running down the dune and into the Bay we would push each other and try our dammdest to drown each other.

The old salt water injection plant stood guard at the entrances to Half Moon Bay and he and I decided to join the "Hamoor Club", for which you had to climb a towering pipe and go out over the water and dive in. The pipe was actually an old crane unit and the leading edge stuck out about fifteen feet from the base of the platform below. At low tide it was said that the drop was ninety feet, perhaps to us, at our young age it seemed as high.

Under the water was the old grating that had come partially loose and floated on tides up and down, from two feet under the water to ten feet. The water was crystal clear for thirty feet down and you had to jump when the mesh was low or you might hit it.

Several of us were there, and all jumped. Very successful dives by all, except for my friend Jamal. He managed the worlds greatest belly flop known to man. The smack was heard in Dhahran and I'm sure fish for miles out convulsed from the impact and shock waves, and then died in droves from laughter at the foolishness of this thing called man. We thought his body would surely break into parts and float away, and I know he had knocked the air out of his lungs, but after we pulled him ashore he seemed fine.

Jamal was a typical Saudi, his Dad worked for the Saudi Government and he lived in Arab style. I had been to his house several times in Dammam and never knew what his father did. Just that he was important because of all the attention the house got. His family were the ones that taught me to ride the Arabia stallion like the wind, and he always won in our races..

Jamal liked to go with us on trips and things we did. He was a real clown in Al-Khobar when he would pretend to speak pidgin Arabic as a lot of us did, but he would get his greatest joy from giving Taxi drivers, with twenty passengers in their little yellow Toyotas, pure hell in fluent Arabic and when the driver would get out and chase us and try to switch us, Jamal would show his identity paper and the Saudi driver would always run with sandals flapping and thobe flying. What a hoot..

He was two years younger than I and when I left for school I would hear from classmates what he was up to. His favorite Aramcon was also my teacher, Mr. Goellner. Although he never attended an Aramco Senior Staff school, he did get to go on a lot of field trips for he spoke Arabic and he seemed to work magic with the Saudi's whenever there seemed to be a problem.

I returned in 1969 as a returning student for my last summer there and he was no where to be found. I found Mr. Goellner and he told me where my friend was. I went out into the desert, about five miles from Jebal Shmal and on a barren part of desert, where there was no evidence man had ever been, I could not find him. He was a Bedu at heart and his Family also. So in that tradition I knew I would never find him again.

He would be 45 today. This would be his birthday, but my friend Jamal Al-Turki, son of Prince Khalid Al-Turki, Minister of Defense of Saudi Arabia will not share today with me.

On a trip to Al-Hasa with a group of 8th graders with Mr. Goellner, he had dived to the bottom of the Al Hasa well and never came up. He was one of two who met their God in that well. I had dived in it in ninth grade and seen the many palm tree sections at the bottom, but Jamal never learned to use diving gear and could hold his breath for a long time, but unknown to those above, he fought a desperate battle sixty feet down with a palm tree log jam, his foot caught and lost...

They had buried him in the traditional Arab fashion of Kings...no marker, a simple white thobe and beneath his beloved desert. I had not found his resting place although I had looked.

I only wanted to share this story, because today I miss him and as I look around, I feel the hot desert sand and wind and her the words " Tezick".

May Allah embrace you on your birthday my friend.